You can't get there from here

Question 1

BECAUSE the mind itself is repetition. The mind is never original. It cannot be; by its nature it is such. The mind is a borrowed thing. It is never new; it is always old. Mind means the past -- it is always out of date. And by and by mind becomes a pattern, a habit, a mechanism. Then you become very efficient in it.

Then you go on moving in the same rut, in the same routine, again and again and again.

You go on asking the same questions because you go on remaining the same mind.

Unless you are new your questions are not going to be new. Unless you drop the old mind completely, totally, utterly, the new question cannot get into you. The new question cannot get into you because there is no space, you are already filled by the old. And the mind has a persistent habit of repeating itself; it is more efficient. The mind is very stubborn. Even if it pretends to change, the change is not real, just a pretension, a modified form of the old. Maybe the language changes, the form changes, but the deep question remains the same... and the mind goes on persisting.

You have to see it. This question is good. At least, this question is not old.

This is from Saroj. She has been asking questions, and I have been never answering her, but today I decided to answer because this is a new glimpse, that she has understood one thing; that she has been asking again and again the same old thing. This understanding is new. A new morning, a new dawn has come to her mind. Her consciousness has become alert to a certain old pattern.

Help this awareness; cooperate with it. By and by you will start seeing yourself in two dimensions the dimension of the mind -- the old, the past; and the dimension of consciousness -- always fresh and always new, always original. I will tell you one anecdote: A man excitedly ran up to another man on the street and slapped him heartily on the back. "Paul Porter," he greeted him, "am I glad to see you! But tell me, Paul, what in the world happened to you? Last time I saw you, you were short and fat.

All of a sudden you seem tall and thin."

"Look, sir," the puzzled man answered, "I am not Paul Porter.

"Ah!" boomed the undaunted greeter, contemptuously.

"Change your name too, eh?"

The mind has a persistent habit to go on believing in itself -- even against all facts. Even if your old mind goes on giving you nothing but misery and hell, you go on believing in it.

People say that this is an age of unbelief. I don't see it. The same old belief in the mind continues. Somebody is a Hindu; he believes in Hinduism because his mind has been conditioned to be a Hindu. Somebody is a Christian; he believes in Christianity because his mind has been conditioned to be a Christian.

Somebody is a communist; he goes on believing in communism because his mind has been conditioned to be a communist. All the three are one. They are not different people. They may have different names and labels, but the same thing is happening to all of them they are all conditioned and clinging to the mind and they all believe in the mind.

I call that man religious who renounces the mind. I call that man religious who renounces all conditionings, who stops clinging to the mind, who starts moving into consciousness, who becomes more and more aware of the conditionings.

And in that very awareness one becomes loose of the conditions -- and that is the only freedom there is. All else is just rubbish. All talk of freedom -- political, economic, social -- is just rubbish. There is only one freedom, and that freedom is freedom from conditionings, freedom from the mind, becoming alert, aware, attentive, and moving in a new dimension.

Good, Saroj, that you have become aware that your questions have been repetitively the same. That's why I was not answering them. It is useless because when the mind goes on persisting in its old habit; it doesn't listen.

Try always to find the new, the fresh, the young -- that which is just being born.

Catch that before it becomes old dissolve into it before it becomes a pattern.

Never make your life a patterned and structured thing. Let it remain a flow, unfrozen, fluid, moving always into the unknown.

Mind means the known. And you are the unknown. If you understand this, you will use the mind and you will never be used by the mind.

Question 2

No, nothing is wrong with you. The wrong is with others who keep on seeing contradictions, but they are in the majority. You will be alone. So don't be overpowered by the majority. Don t be dominated, by the majority. Remain alone. Truth is never of the crowd; it is always of the individual. Truth is never of the many; it is always of the few, of the rare. It is not of the multitude; it is of the unique. This difference has to be understood.

The scientific truth is not unique. The scientific truth, in fact, debars the unique.

It only listens to the repetitive. Science goes on saying that unless an experiment can be repeated, it cannot be believed. When an experiment can be repeated a thousand and one times and it always gives the same result, then it gathers evidence of being true.

Religious truth is of the unique. A Buddha cannot be repeated, a Jesus cannot be repeated. They come once and then they disappear. They come as if out of the blue and then they disappear again into emptiness -- and there is no way to repeat them. That's why science goes on denying them because science believes only in something which can become a mechanical repetition. If Buddha can be produced on order -- if Buddha can be produced like Ford cars, on an assembly line, then science can believe. But that is not possible.

Religion is the realm of the unique, of the rare, of that which cannot be repeated, of the unrepeatable; and science is the realm of the repeatable. That's why science remains part of the mind and religion goes beyond mind, because all that can be repeated, mind can understand.

People see contradictions in me because I don't repeat. They see contradictions in me because their mind has been trained in a certain Aristotelian logic. The Aristotelian logic says that either this is white or black. If it is white then it cannot be black; if it is black then it cannot be white. The Aristotelian logic teaches you; either this or that. That is the base of all scientific mind. The religious mind says it is both; white is also black, and black is also white. It cannot be otherwise because religion sees so deeply that the opposites become one there.

Life must be death also, and death life also, because somewhere the religious mind, religious consciousness comes to understand that they are meeting -- already they are meeting in you. Something is dying, something is being born.

Each moment I see you dying, each moment I see you reborn. You are not a continuity. Each moment something dissolves, each moment something new comes into existence. But you are not aware, so you cannot see the gap. Because you cannot see the gap it looks like a continuity.

Religion believes that there are no contradictions -- there cannot be -- because existence is one. Religion believes and sees that there is no polarity. Even if there is polarity it is not polar and opposite, it is complementary, because existence is nondual; it is one. Life cannot be separate from death and night cannot be separate from day and summer cannot be separate from winter and old age- cannot be separate from childhood.

Childhood grows into old age, night changes into day, day changes into night.

No and yes are not a question of either/or; they are both together. Two points on one line -- maybe on the extreme ends, but the line is one. So whenever a religious person exists, he cannot be consistent in the same way as a scientist is.

He has a deeper consistency. It is not apparent on the surface; it is deep in his being.

I am not a philosopher, and I am not trying to prove any theory to you, and I am not here talking to you to prove some hypothesis. There is nothing to prove.

Truth is there, already given. Religion has nothing to prove; it has no theory about it. It simply gives you a way how to see that which is already there. I go on talking to you not that I have a theory. If I have a theory then I will be consistent.

I will always look whether it fits with my theory or not; if it fits, okay; if it doesn't fit, I drop it. But I have no theory.

Everything fits with me. If I have a theory, then I have to look at my theory. Then the fact becomes secondary and the theory becomes primary. If the fact fits with the theory then it is okay; if it doesn't fit then I have to ignore it.

I have no theory. Every fact, just by being a fact, fits with me, fits with me perfectly. Only very few will become aware of it. So don't be worried. If others see contradictions, they have an Aristotelian conditioning.

My whole effort is to help you melt so your structure dissolves and by and by you can start seeing opposites as complementaries. If you love me -- this will happen immediately because the heart knows no contradictions. Even if there is a contradiction on the surface, the heart knows somewhere deep down there must be a consistency, this contradiction must be meeting somewhere. It must be held together by something which Roes beyond the contradiction.

I am a unity. If you watch me, if you love me, you will be able to see the unity.

Once you see my unity, then whatsoever I say comes out of that unity. It has to be consistent. Whether rationally you can understand or not, that is not the point.

The heart has its own reasons, and those reasons are deeper than the reasons of reason.

When people listen to me, people who are not in any way committed to me, people who are not in any way deeply related to me, people who are not traveling with me into the unknown, then whatsoever I say, they understand it in their own way -- they interpret it. Then it is not the thing that I have said.

Something else has entered into it; their interpretation. And because of their interpretation the whole color changes, the purity is lost, and then there are problems. Those problems are of their own making.

I have heard a story: Patrick went to confession and told the priest, "Father, I love my neighbor."

The priest said, "That's wonderful. I am glad to see that your attendance at services in this church has benefited you and taught you the ways of the Lord.

Carry on the good work. That is the whole message of Jesus; Love your neighbor as thyself."

Patrick went home, changed into some more comfortable dress and slipped next door. He rang the bell and said, "Is it all right?"

The lady said, "Well, Albert is out, but this is afternoon and broad daylight.

Someone might see you coming here."

"It is all right," said Patrick. "I have got special dispensation from Father O'Brien."

Love thy neighbor as thyself. When Jesus says it he means something totally different. When Patrick interprets it it becomes totally different. "Love thy neighbor" is a prayer, it is a meditation, it is a whole way of being, but when ordinary mind listens to it, it takes a different color. Love becomes sex. Prayer becomes infatuation. And the mind is very cunning; it goes on taking any support -- whatsoever is available from anywhere -- to its own ends.

When you listen to me, beware. You may be interpreting me in your own way.

When I say "freedom" you may interpret it as "license." Watch. When I say "love" you may interpret it as "sex." Watch. Look at your interpretations because they are the traps -- and then you will find many contradictions in me because I am there no more; now it is you reflected. You have many contradictions in you. You are almost a confusion. You have many minds in you, and you go on interpreting in many ways, and then you see contradictions -- in your own interpretations.

Listen to me. Even more than listening -- be with me. Then all contradictions disappear.

The third question is a beautiful story from Devateertha:

Question 3

I have always loved that story. It is tremendously significant. Let me repeat the last part. He said, "Sorry, you can't get there from here."

In fact from here you can get only to here. From here there is no way to there.

From here always you can get to here -- from here to here is the only possibility.

From here there is no way to there. From now you get to now -- again and again - - because it is always present. From today you never get to tomorrow.

Remember, from today you come back to today again and again and again- - because there is no tomorrow. Today remains; it is an eternity. Now is an eternity, and here is the only space.

The man may have been drunk, but sometimes drunkards utter tremendously meaningful truths. Why? Because drunkards can never remain in the Aristotelian logic. That may be the appeal of alcohol, of drugs; it relaxes you. Your head which is divided by Aristotle -- between here and there, between now and then, between today and tomorrow -- that division disappears. You settle deeply in you. You regain your lost childhood when everything was everything else and everything was meeting and merging into everything else, and there were no boundaries.

Watch a child. When he gets up in the morning sometimes he may be crying because he has lost a toy in the dream. In fact there is no boundary between dream and day -- there is no boundary between dream and reality. Everything meets and merges into each other. A child lives in a totally different world -- the world which is one, the world of the mystics, the world of the nondualists, advaitans, the world where there are no distinctions, where things are not divided against each other.

That old man may have been drunk that day. Otherwise, when you are in your senses you cannot say such a thing. He tried hard. He tried hard to catch hold of his Aristotelian mind. He tried hard, to get into the old categories which have become dim under alcohol and its influence. He tried hard to find a way but again and again he got lost. Finally he said it is not possible; "Sorry, you cannot yet there from here!"

This conclusion of the anecdote would be loved by Zen Masters. They will see the point, because they are also drunkards -- drunk with God. Again the same happens categories disappear, distinctions disappear. Says Lao Tzu, "Everybody is clearheaded, only I am muddled." Lao Tzu and muddled? Says Lao Tzu.

"Everybody knows what is what only I don't know. Everybody is wise, only I am ignorant." The very word "Lao Tzu" means either "the old fellow" or "the old idiot." Maybe enemies were calling him Lao Tzu and meaning the old idiot and friends were calling him Lao Tzu meaning the old fellow; but he was both.

Remember, there is nowhere to go. You carry your here and now around you.

Wherever you go it is always here; wherever you go it is always now. Here and now are the eternities, and they are not two. In language we have become accustomed to calling them two, because in language Einstein hag still to be introduced. Einstein has proved it now as a scientific fact that space and time are not two. He has coined a new word "spatio-time" to make them one. If that is right then here and now cannot be two. "Here-now" is the word of the future.

Sooner or later, when Einstein is absorbed into languages these words will lose distinction. Here-now.

The story is beautiful. Sometimes in small anecdotes, in folklore, in stories of the people, much wisdom is hidden. Don't just laugh at them. Sometimes through your laughing you may be trying to escape from something which can make you uncomfortable. Nobody writes these stories; they grow like trees. Through centuries a thousand and one minds work on them. They go on changing and being refined continuously. They are part of human heritage. Whenever a joke is told, don't just laugh and forget it. Laugh, perfectly true and right, absolutely okay, but don't miss the joke in the laughter. It may have something of tremendous value hidden in it. If you can see it, your own consciousness will be enriched.

Question 4

It depends. If your work is just a profession, it can vanish when you vanish.

When your ego disappears into deep meditation your profession can also disappear, but if it is not a profession but a vocation, if it is not just a job but a calling, if it is not just imposed on you by yourself or by others but has deeper sources within you, deeper springs to feed it and nourish it, then when the ego disappears, your work for the first time becomes your love; then you become more creative. Tremendous energy is released when the ego disappears because the ego is carrying much of your energy -- wasting much of your energy. Just watch for twenty-four hours. Your ego is taking so much energy -- in anger, in pride, in trips. So much energy is wasted. When the ego disappears, all that energy becomes available to your work, to you.

It can become creative, but then the creativity has a very different quality, a different taste and savor. Then it is not as if you are creating; it is as if you have become a vehicle, as if you are possessed by something greater than you, as if existence has made you an instrument, a medium. You have become a flute and now God sings. You are just a hollow, a passage; you allow the whole to flow through you. If there is any fault, it is yours. If there is any beauty, it is God's. If you err, you err. If something is really given birth through you, you feel grateful.

Then all mistakes are yours because then you must have hindered in some way.

Blocked, you must not have been totally empty. The passage was not clear for God to flow through. But whenever something beautiful happens -- a painting, a poetry, a dance, or whatsoever -- you feel deeply grateful. A prayer comes to your heart; a thankfulness comes to your heart.

Then your creativity has a very quiet, calm quality to it. Right now, with the ego, there is much turmoil and tumult. With the ego the creativity is nothing much but the noise that you are a creator. The poetry may not be worth, but the poet goes on shouting from the housetops. The painting may not be of any value, may not have anything original to it, may be just an imitation, a fake; but the painter goes on carrying his head high in pride. It is very noisy with the ego. When the ego disappears, you flow in many ways, but everything becomes very silent and quiet.

I have heard: Someone once asked Professor Charles Townsend Copeland of Harvard why he lived on the top floor of Hollis Hall in his small, dusty old rooms. "I shall always live here," he answered. "It is the only place in Cambridge where God alone is above me." Then, after a pause, he said, "He is busy, but he is quiet."

Yes, God is busy, tremendously busy -- spread all over existence. Just see how many things he is doing together, simultaneously. This infinite expanse is his.

You must have seen pictures of Hindu gods with thousands of hands. They are very symbolic. They show that he cannot work with two hands. Two hands won't be enough. The work is so vast. You must have seen Hindu gods with three heads looking in three dimensions -- because if he has only one head then what will happen to his back? He has to look in all directions. He has to be busy everywhere, with a thousand and one hands... but so quiet -- not even claiming, "I have done so much."

And you do a small thing -- you just arrange a few words and you think it is a poem -- and now arises the pride and you go mad. And you start claiming that you have created something. Remember, only mediocres claim. The real creators never claim, because the real creators become so humble, they understand that it is none of their own. In fact they have only been vehicles.

When Rabindranath, a great poet, used to have moods, was possessed, he would go in a room, close his door. For a few days he will not eat, he will not come out.

He will just silently listen to the voice of God. He will purify himself so that he can become the right vehicle. He will cry and weep and he will go on writing.

And whenever anybody asked he would always say. "Whatsoever is beautiful is not mine, and whatsoever is ordinary must be mine. I must have added it."

When Coleridge died, almost forty thousand incomplete pieces of poetry and stories were found -- forty thousand. Almost all his life his friends were saying, "Why don't you complete them?" He said, "How can I complete? He starts; he has to complete -- whenever he wills. I am helpless. One day he possessed me and then a few lines came -- and only one line is missing, but I am not going to add it because that will become destructive to it. Seven lines from the sky and one line from the earth? No, it will cut the wings. I will wait. If he is not in a hurry, who am I to worry about it?" This is a real creator.

A real creator is not a creator at all. A real creator becomes instrumental; he is possessed of the great forces. Wild forces of God possess him, wild seas and skies of God possess him. He becomes a mouthpiece. He utters, but the words are not his. He paints, but the colors are not his. He sings, but the sounds are not his. He dances, but he dances as if possessed -- somebody else dancing through him.

So it depends. The question is if your ego disappears into meditation what will happen to your work. If it is a profession it will disappear, and it is good that it disappears. Nobody should be a professional. Your work should be your love; otherwise the work becomes destructive. Then somehow you drag it and your whole life becomes dull. Your whole life becomes empty in a negative sense, unfulfilled. You are doing something which you never wanted to do in the first place. It is violent. It is suicidal -- you are killing yourself slowly, poisoning your own system. Nobody should be a professional. Your work should be your love; it should be your prayer. It should be your religion, not your profession.

There should be a passion flowing between you and your work. When really you have found your vocation, it is a love affair. It is not that you have to do it. It is not that you have to force yourself to do it. Suddenly you do it in a totally different way you had not known before. Your steps have a difference dance, your heart goes on humming. Your whole system functions for the first time at the optimum. It is a fulfillment. Through it you will find your being -- it will become a mirror; it will reflect you. Whatsoever it is -- a small thing.

It is not a question that only great things become vocations no. A small thing.

You may be making toys for children, or making shoes, or weaving cloth -- or whatsoever.

It doesn't matter what it is, but if you love it, if you have fallen in love with it; if you are flowing with no reservation, if you are not withholding yourself, if you are not dragging -- dancingly moving into it -- it will cleanse you, it will purify you. Your thinking by and by will disappear. It will be a silent music, and by and by you will feel that it is not only work, it is your being. Each step fulfilled, something in you flowers.

And richest is the man who has found his vocation. And richest is the man who starts feeling a fulfillment through his work. Then the whole life becomes a worship.

Work should be a worship, but that's possible only when your being starts to be more meditative. Through meditation you will gather courage. Through meditation you will gather courage to throw the profession and to move towards the vocation.

Maybe through the profession you could have been rich, but that richness would have been of the outside.

Through the vocation you may remain poor; you may not be so rich. The society may not pay for it because the society has its own ends.

You may be writing poetry and nobody may be purchasing them, because the society does not need poetry. It can afford -- it is foolish enough -- it can afford to be without poetry. It pays if you are preparing something for war, for violence. If you are doing something for love -- a poetry is something for love, people will be more loving -- the society doesn't bother. The society needs soldiers, the society needs bombs, the society needs weapons not worship.

The society may not pay you, you may remain poor, but I tell you that poverty, that risk, is worth taking because inner riches will be overflowing towards you.

You may die poor as far as your outside is concerned, but you will die an emperor as far as your inner being is concerned -- and ultimately only that is of any value.

Question 5

The body is helpful if it is healthy, but it is not an absolute condition -- helpful, but not absolutely necessary. If you can drop the identity with the body, if you start feeling that you are not the body, then it doesn't matter whether the body is ill or healthy. If you start going beyond it, transcending it, becoming a witness to it, then even in an ill body the enlightenment is possible.

I am not saying that you should all go and become ill. If you are ill then don't feel desperate, then don't feel hopeless. A healthy body is helpful. It is easier to go beyond a healthy body than beyond an ill body because the ill body needs attention. It is difficult to forget an ill body. It constantly reminds you of its misery and pain and illness. It constantly calls you back to it. It needs care; it needs no attention. It is difficult to forget it -- and if you cannot forget it it is difficult to go beyond it. But difficult _I don't say impossible.

So don't be worried by it. If you feel it is ill, chronically ill, and there is no way to make it healthy, forget shout it. You will have to make a little more effort, a little extra effort, to gain witnessing, but it can be gained.

Mohammed was not very healthy. Buddha was constantly ill; he had to always carry a physician with him. Jeevak was the name of the physician who constantly had to attend to Buddha. Shankara died when he was thirty-three; That shows the body was not in very good condition; otherwise he would have lived a little longer. Thirty-three is not the time to die. So don't be worried; don't make it a hindrance.

Secondly, you say, "My mind is scientifically indulgent -- bhogi." If it is really scientifically indulgent then you can come out of it. Only an unscientific mind can go on repeating the stupidity of indulgence. If you are really a little alert, scientifically observant, then sooner or later you will come out of it -- because how can you go on repeating?

For example, sex. Nothing bad in it, but to go on repeating it for your whole life shows that you are a little stupid. I don't say there is some sin in it -- no. It simply shows that you are a little stupid. The religions have been telling you that sex is sin. I don-t say so. It is simply foolishness. Allowed, nothing wrong in it, but if you are intelligent you will come out of it -- one day or other. Greater the intelligence, sooner the day will come when you will understand that "Yes, it's okay. It has a time, it has a meaning at a certain stage of life, but then one comes out of it." It is a little childish.

Let me tell you a story: Two elderly people were appearing in court suing for divorce. The man was ninety-two and the woman was eighty-four. The judge spoke first to the man, "How old are you?

"Ninety-two, Your Honor."

Then he spoke to the woman.

"I am eighty-four," she admitted shyly.

Said the judge to the man. 'How long have you two been married?"

"Sixty-seven years," grimaced the old-timer.

"And you mean you actually want to terminate a marriage that has lasted almost seventy years?" demanded the judge unbelievingly.

The old man shrugged and said, "Look, Your Honor, whichever way you look at it, enough is enough."

Whichever way you look at it.... If you are intelligent you will not wait for ninety-two years -- enough is enough will come sooner. The more intelligent you are, the sooner it will come. Buddha left the world of indulgence when he was just young. His first child was born, and the first child was only one month old when he left. Enough is enough came to him too early. He was really a very, very intelligent man. The more intelligence is there, the sooner the point of transcendence.

So if you think you are really scientific, it is time -- old-timer -- to understand enough is enough.

And you say, "My heart is approximately yogi." Approximately? That is not the language of the heart. Approximately is the language of the mind. The heart knows only totality -- this way or that. Either all or none -- the heart does not know anything like approximately. Just go to a woman and tell her, "I love you approximately." Then you will know.

How can you love approximately? What does it mean in fact? That you don't love.

No, the heart still doesn't seem to function. You may have heard a rumor from the heart, but you have not understood it. The heart is always total. For or against does not matter, but it is always total. The heart knows no division; all divisions are of the mind.

The body is ill, there is no problem. A little more effort, that's all. The mind is in indulgence, there is also not much problem. Sooner or later you will understand and come out of it. But the real problem comes with the third; approximately won't do. So look again, deep in your heart. As deep as you can, watch.

Allow the heart to say and whisper to you. If the heart really loves yoga -- yoga means the search, the effort to find out what is the truth of life -- if really the heart has moved on the search,-then nothing can prevent it.

Neither indulgence will be a barrier nor illness will be a barrier. The heart can override any situation; the heart is the real source of your energy. Listen to the heart. Trust the heart. And move with the heart. And don't be worried about enlightenment, because that worry is also of the mind; The heart knows nothing about future; it lives here now. Search, meditate, love, be here-now; and don't be worried about enlightenment. It comes on its own accord. Who bothers?

If you are ready it is to come. If you are not ready, thinking constantly about it will not make you ready. In fact, that thinking will function as an obstacle. So forget about enlightenment and don't be worried whether or not it is going to happen in this life.

Whenever you are ready it will happen. It can happen this moment. It depends on your readiness. Whenever the fruit is ripe it falls to the ground. Ripeness is all. So don't create unnecessary problems around yourself. Enough. You have illness, that is a problem. Indulgence, that is a problem. Approximate love for yoga and enlightenment, that is a problem. Now no more problems. Please, don't bring this enlightenment in. Forget about it. It has nothing to do with you and your thinking and your expectations, with your hopes or desires. It has nothing to do with them. Whenever you are desireless and ready and the fruit is ripe, it happens on its own accord.

Question 6

I am ready right now to help you. Why wait that long? Why - postpone it?

And if you miss me while I am alive, how can you get to me when I am dead? If you cannot flow with me while I am here with you, it will become very, very difficult for you when I am gone. Why postpone?

You are thirsty and I am ready to quench it right now, then why say tomorrow?

Why are you afraid? And if you are afraid today, you will be afraid tomorrow.

You will be more afraid tomorrow because today's fear will have gathered. Every day you will go on gathering fear. Drop it. The very readiness to die is the readiness to be reborn.

I am reminded of a very beautiful story. I would like to share it with you: Three tortoises, aged 201, 135, and 97, decided to go on a pub-crawl in London.

They first visited the Star and Garter. A fortnight later they reached the next pub.

Just as they were going in, the oldest one said, "Oh, dear. I left my wallet back at the other pub." The youngest of the three said, "You are too old to go all the way back. I will fetch it for you." And he went off. Ten days later, just as the two older tortoises reached the bar rail, one of them said. "Young Arnold has been a heck of a long time fetching your money." The other said, "Just like him. He is absolutely unreliable and terribly slow."

A voice from the doorway suddenly said, "Damn the pair of you! Just for that I won't go!" Don't be that lazy, and don't go on postponing.

Question 7

It is from Ajit Saraswati, Dr. Phadnis. All the three reasons are true, and I am happy that he is alert and aware and can see into things. Yes, all the things are true.

Whenever he is near me, I also feel that he is a little nervous, a little trembling inside. And these are the reasons. And it is good; it is nothing wrong. One has to be that way.

If you start feeling my presence, then you can see the gap. Then much has to be bridged. One starts feeling a nervousness, whether it will be possible or not. I am giving you much, and the more you receive, the more you become capable of receiving more; and the very possibility that more has to be received creates a nervousness, because it is a responsibility. Growth is a responsibility. It is the greatest responsibility there is... and then the fear that maybe the opportunity comes and you miss it. And, right, when I give to you, immediately your heart says give something in return, and that is impossible. That I understand. What can you give... except yourself?

All the three; causes are true, and it is good that one becomes aware.

Question 8

It is from Amida. The same question will arise in so many hearts by and by. The question is beautiful, but don't be worried by it. There is no need to do anything for me. Just be. Just be; don't think in terms of doing anything. There is nothing to do, but just by being yourself you make me tremendously happy. Not that I am not happy already, but just as does a gardener when a new rosebush brings flowers and the garden feels happy, whenever somebody amongst you becomes a being and flowers, I feel tremendously happy.

Just like a painter paints a picture. I work on you. A poet works on a poetry. I work on you. You are my poetries, my roses, my paintings. Enough that the painting be, nothing else is needed.

Question 9

They are not two. Music is meditation -- meditation crystallized in a certain dimension. Meditation is music -- music melting into the dimensionless. They are not two.

If you love music, you love it only because around it somehow you feel meditation happening. You are absorbed by it, you become drunk in it.

Something of the unknown starts descending around you... God starts whispering. Your heart beats in a different rhythm, one in tune with the universe. Suddenly you are in a deep orgasm with the whole. A subtle dance enters into your being and doors that have remained closed forever start opening. A new breeze passes through you; dust of the centuries is blown away.

You feel as if you have taken a bath, a spiritual bath; you have been under a shower -- clean, fresh, virgin.

Music is meditation; meditation is music. These are two doors to approach the same phenomenon.

Question 10

There is no need to do anything with the law of gravity. Once you become meditative, a different law applies to you; the law of grace. You become available to a different world; the world of grace. Something goes on pulling you upwards.

Just as gravitation pulls you downwards, something goes on pulling you upwards. No need to do anything with the law of gravitation. You have just to open a new door into your being from where the law of grace becomes available to you.